from my understanding, in this mode astra is supposed to make notes and it gets a new_context tool that wipes its memory without compaction and then it gets some tools to search the full history. this makes it possible to recall/recover exact things from many context windows ago and removes the risk of compaction losing crucial details. it shifts the burden onto the agent realizing it needs to look up some details. it could previously search the rollout json directly, but i've never seen it do so unless instructed.